Public Bank Goes To Federal Court Over Nfc Confidentiality Breach Case

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Public Bank has filed a leave application to appeal against the Court of Appeal’s Aug 30 ruling.PUTRAJAYA: A commercial bank found liable for breach of statutory duties and confidentiality against the National Feedlot Corporation (NFC) and three others has gone to the Federal Court to set aside the Court of Appeal’s ruling.
Concurrently, NFC has cross-appealed the appellate court’s ruling on the nominal damages awarded in the RM560 million suit the corporation had filed.
When contacted by FMT, lawyer Poh Choo Hoe said Public Bank had filed a leave application to appeal against the Court of Appeal’s Aug 30 ruling. He declined to disclose the details of the application.
Meanwhile, lawyer Farhan Shafee said NFC filed a similar application, but this was confined to the quantum of damages.
In delivering the Court of Appeal’s unanimous ruling in August, Justice S Nantha Balan said there was a serious misapprehension of evidence which warranted appellate intervention over the High Court’s dismissal of the suit by NFC and three others.
He said the trial judge had ignored vital evidence, particularly the testimony of Veronica Foo before the domestic inquiry panel and the bank’s stance vis-à-vis the charge of serious misconduct against former bank clerk Johari Mohamed.
Foo was the bank’s head of investigation and audit.
However, the bench, which also comprised Justices Azizah Nawawi and P Ravinthran, only awarded NFC RM10,000 as nominal damages as it failed to prove the losses suffered.
NFC was nonetheless allowed costs of RM500,000.
On July 29, 2019, the High Court ruled that NFC, its chairman Salleh Ismail, and subsidiary companies – National Meat & Livestock Corporation Sdn Bhd and Agroscience Industries Sdn Bhd – had failed to prove their case against Public Bank on a balance of probability.
Salleh is the husband of former Wanita Umno chief Shahrizat Abdul Jalil.
Initiated in 2012, the suit alleged that the bank had breached confidentiality by allowing details of banking transactions to be revealed by the then PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli.
They claimed their business reputation and credibility suffered irreparable loss and damage due to the various breaches of statutory duties owed by the bank pursuant to the Banking and Financial Institutions Act 1989 (Bafia).
They also claimed that their leaked bank account information was used by Rafizi on March 7, 2012 to bolster allegations that they had leveraged a government loan to buy eight KL Eco City properties.
They had sought RM560 million in damages from the bank. - FMT

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